


Brothers

by thecollectiveunconscious



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Half-Sibling Incest, Inspired by Lezhin webtoon "Paramour", M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-11 23:55:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15327216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecollectiveunconscious/pseuds/thecollectiveunconscious
Summary: Some lines are not meant to be crossed. There are things too sacred, too blessed - cherished things that are mandated by the virginal heavens. Purity. Blood. Family.Viktor Nikiforov thinks to choose Hell, instead.





	1. Hasetsu

**Author's Note:**

> The [webtoon](https://www.lezhin.com/en/comic/paramour_en) that inspired everything...

**VIKTOR NIKIFOROV**  rolled down the window. He stared blankly at the rolling scenery passing by him.

The skies were a cloudless blue. The endless sound of waves lapping was punctuated by the cries of the large water birds circling above. From the distance was the occasional blast of a horn, faint in the background as those small wooden ships creaked and moaned their way across the salty waters.

Hasetsu, a small town located on the Kyushu Island of Japan, the southernmost of its mainland isles. He did not need to do more than take a cursory glance to note that the place was slower, quaint, comfortably twenty years behind the giants of modernity in this nation. Tokyo was roughly 800 kilometers and a universe away from this green, alien place. Hasetsu had been a prosperous whaling town once upon a time but the whales had long disappeared to overhunting and the business had moved. It had been in it’s slow, gradual decline for over a century, like moth creeping over broken stone.

It was a beautiful day, the most picturesque of scenes, and he was in an utterly foul mood.

He had barely even known this place existed. And he certainly never would have visited – except for this blasted obligation, which weighed on him as the stone once weighed on cursed Sisyphus.

Suddenly the very air inside the car felt constricting, and Viktor felt a wave of nausea roll over him.

He leaned forward and tapped his driver. “Stop. I'll make my way from here.” he instructed in crisp Russian.

He needed to collect his thoughts before facing _them_. In his mind was a whirl of bitter thoughts, which he would sort through and compartmentalize before dealing with those people. He didn’t want them heading out to greet him before he was ready, perhaps hearing the telltale sound of the roaring engine - ambushing him before he’d properly planned out what he’d say. No, he'd slowly make his way to their house, collect himself. He needed to be the one to knock, the one to ease himself into the situation only when he was fully ready.

He’d walk. Why not. Kill two birds with one stone. After all, it had been years since he'd had time for anything as simple as the pleasure of a solitary walk.

The driver stepped out and efficiently opened Viktor's door. He exited and immediately felt himself in alien land. The air, the water, all of it smelled so – different.

He turned to the driver. "You'll be informed when needed. Be ready in a couple of hours."

The man bowed low, wordless, before ducking back inside. Soon the car was but a speck, rolling back down the path he had come until he could see it no more.

Closing his eyes and listening to the murmur of the wind, the sound of water splashing onto the grassy banks – he could pretend, just for a minute, that he was here for the sole reason of enjoying the sounds of nature –

“ _Yutopia_ ,” he murmured out loud.

He sighed – there was no point in trying to delay or sugarcoat the inevitable. He knew the small village was coming up somewhere along this road, but a quick check of the map would be all that was needed. He grabbed for the phone in his pocket.

And blinked, as his fingers hit nothing but bare fabric.

He frowned as he dug around some more. Definitely not there. He checked his other pocket. Nothing. A small stream of doubt beginning to bubble inside him, he checked the pockets of his blazers. Even his waistband; perhaps he’d absentmindedly tucked in in there.... He paused, his heart beginning to thump erratically. His fingers helplessly gripped the fabric –

“Fuck,” he cursed harshly. His feet felt suddenly damp inside his socks, and a low, underlying panic began to course through his body. His phone, his one source of information and tenuous link back to civilization was missing and he’d found himself suddenly stranded on this spit of land without a clue of the location of the house he was hunting down.

He kicked at a pebble and watched it go skittering down the lonely path, bouncing, bouncing, eventually disappearing into the low bushes off the road. He shouldn’t have even bothered taking his time – should have just driven straight up to the residence, collected the boy, and turned right back towards the airport –

_Focus._

The size of the island. A literal spit of land with a small clump of civilization. He was lost and foolish but hopefully, the small population and smaller number of dwellings would be able to get him pointed in the path of the right residence.

Right, then, to work.

 

 

 

Viktor felt like he'd been walking for days. In reality it had only been about an hour, but the glare of the sun, the repeated lapping of water and the deafening silence was all becoming too much. He had estimated that it would be only about a half hour walk into the village, but clearly he had been too preoccupied inside the car to calculate properly. Now he was stuck slogging his way down this never-ending path.

The island was quiet – too quiet. He had come across nothing notable since he'd been walking – not a single car had driven by. That was expected, though. No one had any reason to leave or visit this underwhelming place.

He cursed his father once more, mentally kicking out in his frustration. Why he was here, wasting his time when there were mergers to consider, contracts to negotiate, companies to cultivate… all responsibilities that had (as had most other things in his life) been heaped upon him by his parents. All of that, though, he could handle. Even gain a certain sense of self-satisfaction as the company grew exponentially, beyond what his parents had ever even dared to dream.

His father had died when he was fifteen and his mother had whispered of absence and cruel indifference and had told him that his father had never loved them. That there were _others_. And the part of Viktor that had once loved his father, worshipped him as the singular force in his life, had died skewered on the thorns of his mother’s words.

Because as much as he had wanted to believe that his father had loved them, had loved _him_ – she had not lied on one aspect. There had been others.

What he was doing now was nothing more than carrying out the wishes of a man who had once been connected to him through blood. It was an obligation and as much as Viktor hated to, he was firm on keeping it. There was such a thing as honor, after all. Familial duty.

His mother had screamed, cursed, cried rivers of crocodile tears when he'd told her what he'd intended to do once he'd gotten that letter. She had snatched the paper out of his hands and shredded it to pieces with her scarlet nails.

"That filthy, low-born disgusting woman! How _dare_ she contact you – how dare she ask this of us?"

He'd borne out her flying rage with passive indifference – it wasn't his first time to experience it, after all. "There is a certain amount of responsibility one must take for this sort of thing, after all. And she's not asking _you_ , mother. She came to _me_. And I have every intention of honoring it."

She'd reared forward and slapped him, her teeth gritting with the force. Though the blow rang out and his cheek smarted, he'd barely reacted.

" _You_! You've always been an ungrateful child. You are letting her humiliate us. Me. You and your damned father, _always defied me_ \- "

" _Mother_."

She'd whirled around, mascara streaks running down her face. "What?" She'd snapped.

"He will be here by next week. I'm going to set him up in his own place in the city."

She went even paler. " _What_? Are you out of your _mind_? Here, where all of our friends – all of our acquaintances, our entire lives... you are going to display this – this – _abomination_?"

He'd finally lost his patience with her then; this conversation had stretched far longer than he could tolerate. " _No_ , I will not be parading him around the streets of St. Petersburg. I will bring him here initially as is my duty, then as far as I'm concerned he can go anywhere in the world he likes. But I will not have him where I cannot monitor him."

As he'd stood up to leave she'd still been shaking with rage.

He’d ignored it as he walked through the door. "The sooner I act on this, the less likely _he_ is going to act. I'm not going to have us splashed front page in the _Novye Izvestia_ and being sued for 18 years of childcare... this is all for your benefit as well. If you would stop screaming long enough to see that."

"You cannot bring him here!" She'd shrieked, ignoring everything he'd said. "Stupid boy, _foolish_ boy, you - "

He'd slammed the door shut behind him and that had been that. A thoroughly unpleasant encounter, but hardly anything more than expected.

And here he was now, exactly a week later, walking along this crumbling path towards the thing his mother so passionately hated.

If he were normal – if he even had a shred of feeling left toward his parents… he had to admit. He would have _hated_ him, too.

 

 

 

Viktor had finally entered into what seemed to be the habited part of this island. At least, he saw dilapidated houses and poor patches of farming. Though with the creaky little structures ready to fall right down at the first sign of a typhoon; he couldn’t imagine anyone actually living inside them. 

He'd spotted an old man with his back bent nearly 90 degrees to the ground and had tried to talk to him; the man had glared at him with suspicion and had shuffled away at rather surprising speed. He'd seen a group of children playing near a bunch of torn fishnets, sputtering and laughing as they carped around in the water. He'd crouched down to talk to them, but at the sight of this silver-haired stranger they had shrieked, flung water at him, and run away.

He was wet with stinking pond water and despaired of ever reaching his destination.

As he rounded the bend, he came upon the island pier. A few rotting planks of wood lashed together and several fishing boats grouped to one side. 

A group of fisherwomen sat huddled around the it, gossiping and plucking out shells and flapping fish from green foamy nets.

He stepped off the road and descended down towards them, calling out hesitantly.

“ _Sumimasen_ ,” he called out stiffly. “Ah… excuse me?”

The women stopped their chattering and turned to look at him, deep frowns of suspicion on their faces. He moved closer and took off his sunglasses when he bowed to them. Might as well be polite.

"Ahm..." He spoke few words of Japanese, and none that would aid him in that moment.

“Would you… tell me the directions to – to Yutopia?" He spoke in accented English, hoping that they would understand enough of this universal language to lead him in the right direction. "The bathhouse.”

One grizzled woman muttered to another, the deep frown between her bristling brows dropping even lower. Her beady eyes ran all over him, lingering over his silver hair, his blue eyes, every bit of him extremely foreign and supremely uncomfortable. She stared at him, disapproving.

“この外国人は何を言っているのですか? ” (“What is this foreigner saying?”) spoke one woman grumpily to her group, throwing another sharp accusatory glance at him. Viktor tried a smile, the same heartlessly dazzling smile that regularly charmed the stockings off the female kind back home and the world over.

It didn’t work. “あなたは日本語を話せませんか？” (“You don’t speak any Japanese?”) demanded another, at the same time she spat out a mouthful of tobacco. It landed on the ground with a splash of brown against the wet wooden pier, which she scrubbed out with the heel of her rubber boot.

Viktor looked into the half-circle of grim, weathered old faces around him and found himself uncharacteristically intimidated.

“Ahm… where is the _onsen?_ ” He said. “ _Yutopia_. Bath. Washing,” he said, raising his arm and mimicking rubbing the surface over with a washcloth.

The disgruntled, somewhat outraged muttering of his audience told him they were the opposite of charmed. As the women grumbled rather threateningly, he found himself wondering if he were about to be picked up and thrown into the sea.

What a bloody whole waste of effort, he thought. All of this was his fault. Instead of coming himself, he should have just sent an assistant to pick up the boy, find a place for him, hand him a card he could use to his heart's content… what on Earth had possessed him to do all of this himself, when he could just as easily never have laid eyes on him… yet here he was, idiotically miming in front of this group of women so intimidating they made the gestapo look like child’s play.

He tried again. “The Katsuki’s?” He added. “Hiroko and - " he paused, running over the name in his mind. The name that caused him so much trouble. “ – _Yuuri_. Yuuri… Katsuki.”

One of the women opened her mouth. “Katsuki Yuuri?”

He nodded.

Immediately, they began to chatter, but this time their faces eased, the frowns smoothening as they visibly relaxed before him.

 “ユーリくん！なぜ、彼は最初からそう言っていたはずです！以前はその恐ろしいディスプレイで時間を無駄にする代わりに.” (“Yuuri-kun! Why, he should have said so from the beginning! Instead of wasting our time with that hideous display earlier.”)

“これは彼女が期待しているゲストでなければなりません. " (“So _this_ must be the guest that she is expecting.”)

“彼女は彼が外国人だとは言わなかったが、ただ彼がここから来たわけではない.” (“She didn’t say he was a foreigner though, just that he wasn’t from around here.”)

“典型的には、その女性は20年近く近くここに住んでいて、彼女はまだ自分自身にとどまっています。彼女と彼女の少年は、彼のように奇妙な生き物です。彼はいませんか？” (“Typical, that woman has lived here near twenty years and she still keeps to herself. Her and that boy of hers, as dear as he is, what a funny little thing. Isn’t he?”)

One of the women stepped forward and suddenly thrust a big black bag into his hands. The slimy handle and the overpowering smell of fish told him of its contents.

“Yuuri-kun,” she said, commanding his attention and raising her finger up high.

He turned in the direction she pointed. It was towards the top of the hill in the distance – _hill_ was a bit of a misnomer, though it certainly wasn’t a mountain – rather steep, all the same. A set of broken stone steps carved into the mountain was visible, haphazardly leading upwards to the residence sitting atop. A  little red-roofed house, isolated from the rest.

“行け！” (“Go, go!”) She barked, giving him a little shove forward.

Viktor, wincing, bobbed his head in and set off in the direction. Still clutching the slimy bag.

He could still hear the women chattering as left. At the top, when he'd climbed up back to the main road, he thought he should turn back and – perhaps express his thanks more properly. But when he'd turned around, the women had gone back to gossiping and fiddling with their nets without paying him even the slightest bit of mind.

At least he knew the house now. Seated alone and isolated from the rest. Charming enough in the distance, he thought. A house straight out of a Japanese folktale, one of the stories Katsuki-san had used to tell him when he had been younger.

She’d been quite a storyteller, he remembered – weaving her words with a magician’s quality, her low melodic voice creating pictures of demons and dashing heroes. Long after he’d drifted off to sleep these figures had clashed in his dreams, wheeling through the heavens; so vivid had these impressions been on him as a boy. Strong enough that he could still recall a few of them, decades later… the one-legged _onna_ , a princess the size of a petal, a softly-whispered story of the two cursed brothers…

He resigned himself to the steep walk as he reached the base of the hill, biting his lip as his shoes slipped on the crunchy gravel beneath. The leather was utterly ruined by now, mud and bits of grime spattered across its surface. His Italian-made loafers were made to be worn striding around a boardroom, not for sweaty climbs up the sides of veritable mountains.

The sun bloomed, rising steadily higher into its apex as Viktor made his way up. He grew more and more irritated as beads of perspiration began to appear, dotting around his hairline. The sweet, sticky heat clung to him in spirals, the sleek lines of his suit flattening into damp patches underneath crucial areas. For a man used to the northern air of St. Petersburg and the dry bite of its winds, this blooming wet heat could not be worse than the mouth of hell itself.

Finally, blessedly, he climbed the last of those wretched stone steps. He pulled himself up, nearly wheezing.

The house lay in front of him.

The dwelling in front of him was also in disrepair, though not in quite the sorry state as he’d seen with the homes at the edge of the settlement. Instead, it seemed as though it had always been that way, as if the building, with its swooping ancient roofs, had one day just sprouted from the ground. The entrance was closed off with a little wooden gate with elaborate, peeling Japanese characters. Little rock statues of gods and animals, imps of mythology, dotted themselves along the front.

It was time. He brushed himself off. Took a deep breath. Calmed the sudden voices in his head, the unsure ones, the panic, the anger, the confusion, the dread – he would do this on his terms, he was fully in control of the situation –

The inner doors slid open and a lady stepped out, a smile on her face.

“Viktor Nikiforov?” called out Katsuki Hiroko in her low, melodic voice.

 

 

 

“Viktor-sama,” she said again. 

Viktor looked at the woman he hadn’t seen in over twenty years. She’d always been small, always been delicate, but in his dusty memories she had glowed with a contentment deep within her. A stark contrast with the regal, haughty and perpetual dark viciousness of his mother.

She had been a lovely woman. But now, there were lines creasing her skin. Her eyes looked clouded behind thick spectacles. And even with her expanded figure of age, she looked – shriveled. All of her, caving inwards. The white streaks in her hair shocked him – she was, to his memory, just a few years north of 40.

Her letter hadn’t been a ruse, he thought. She truly was ill.

Viktor realized he was staring and hastily dipped his head into a bow.

“Katsuki-san,” he said. “It has been some time. It is a pleasure to see you again.”

She laughed gently, kindly, and Viktor finally saw a hint of the woman he’d known once before. “You’ve always been polite, Viktor-sama. A gentleman, even when you were only a boy.” She motioned him forward and he obliged, entering the gate and closing it shut behind him.

"Ah, this is... from some fisherwomen down below..." he offered the bag to her.

She took it from him. "Fish? You must have met some of the village elders. But what were you doing conversing with them?" 

"I - had to ask for directions."

The dimples at the side of her face deepened. "That must have been a pleasant conversation." 

Viktor grimaced, and she laughed. The lilting laugh that rendered her even more familiar - the many times he had heard that laugh in a few short years of his childhood...

Inside, the house was clean despite its wornness, the peeling of the walls and the shriveling of the tatami beneath his feet. The main room was simply adorned in traditional Japanese decor, and the hall off to the side led into dark shadows, towards rooms. A building this size couldn’t have more than a handful of them, he figured. For the Katsukis, the onsen business had never been exactly prosperous.

By the television set was a framed photograph of a laughing young boy and his laughing mother. Viktor averted his eyes.

“Feel free to take a deep soak in the springs later tonight,” she offered once they’d been seated on the mats. She poured him tea, a hot steaming cup that sent a rich, green fragrance through the room. “It’s a slow season, and there are no guests tonight… and I imagine you might enjoy a night of solitude, away from your obligations.”

He cleared his throat. “I… not to be impolite, Katsuki-san, but I had not intended to stay the night.”

She paused. For a long moment they were still – Viktor uncomfortably seated, Hiroko seemingly with all the ease in the world. She sipped her tea slowly.

Hiroko looked at him with a wry smile. “Of course, no offense taken. But I had hoped you would do a kindness for me by allowing me one more night with Yuuri. If I may impose once more on all the generosity you have already shown me.”

He mentally groaned.

“…Yes, of course. I haven’t quite considered just how hard all this must be for you. Forgive me for my insensitivity.”

She smiled again, and Viktor felt as though he were taking a step backwards through time. That same, kind face that had greeted him every day after school. Even after her belly swelled and his mother’s expression had grown darker by the day.

“I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I truly apologize for everything. I know I have asked too much of you… all those years ago, and now this…”

He gestured in negation. “What’s in the past is the past. And this – the situation now… is not of your making. It is my father’s will and I am following his wishes, that is all.”

Her eyes grew misty, and Viktor looked away.

“And where is… Yuuri this afternoon?” he ventured.

“Oh, my Yuuri is off doing what he will – in the summers, he’s more outdoors than in,” she said fondly. “He’d be gone for weeks if he could. Swimming, roaming around the island – not that there’s much for him to explore anymore – diving with the local boys. And in the winter, once the water has frozen over solid – day in, day out, skating.”

That caught him off guard. “Skating?”

She nodded, smiling. “Yes, skating. One of the village girls, Yuuko, got him into it when they were children. For a time all he talked about was that he wanted to skate professionally – unfortunately for him there wasn’t anywhere he could train… but still, something seems to draw him to the ice. Like he can’t stay away from it…”

Her voice grew quiet. “Perhaps it’s in his blood.”

Viktor’s lips twisted upwards. “Yes. It would seem so.”

Hiroko started at the sudden tone of Viktor’s voice, and glanced at the way his fingers had clenched around his cup.

She lowered her head. “Apologies, Viktor-sama. I didn’t think.”

Memories, unwanted ones, flickered through his head. Viktor as a child, wobbly kneed and snuffling while donning his first pair of skates. Viktor as a teenager, his hair flying out behind him and doing endless runs, 100 laps, 200 laps, 500 laps around the rink until his feet cracked and blistered and the blood ran down, long and unbroken, vermillion stripes lashing against pale skin.

His father, faceless and expressionless in Viktor’s memory, his voice booming out behind him like a crack of thunder…

Hiroko breathed out a soft and labored laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “Just brush off the things I say as an old woman foolishly voicing out the bits that come into her head.”

Viktor smiled, a real smile. “Not foolish. Never foolish.”

Hiroko smiled at him and the two sat in silence for a long, lingering moment. Viktor sipped his tea, listened to the ticking of the ancient grandfather clock in the corner.

“I don’t have long, Viktor-sama,” she said.

_Ah._

The real conversation.

He straightened up. “Since when have you known?”

“The illness? For many years. But when it began to go into countdown… I’ve known for about six months now. I have probably that amount or so left.”

“Why… didn’t you write sooner?”

She looked down, and her expression grew pensive. “…I didn’t wish to bother you or your – your mother. I was torn for months. Trying to see what I could do… what the doctors said, sometimes diagnoses can change… trying to see what we could do on our own…”

Hiroko looked at him, and her eyes were apologetic, but firm. Resolute. “There’s no way around it. I am dying. And my son, I cannot bear to leave him alone and helpless in this world. Not when he doesn’t need to be.”

She spoke with the last gasping strength of a mother shielding her child from the world. Viktor couldn’t help the stir of something in his chest.

Against his previous sentiments, he found himself speaking to try to reassure her. “…Your son will be more than well provided for. You have nothing to worry about. It was our father’s wish, and I have every intention of giving him every material comfort that I am able.”

She nodded, distracted, her eyes searching his.

Feeling discomfort at the way she intensely gazed at him, he continued. “Any path he wants to pursue, whatever I am able to give, I will. Does he want to go to university? Study in America, Europe?” He paused. “Skating, you mentioned… at his age, it would be near impossible to break into the profession now, but at least for recreation I can guarantee… there are clubs practicing in Olympic stadium rinks in St. Petersburg, which he can join…”

“Yes… yes,” she nodded. “I – thank you, thank you… I can’t express how grateful…”

“In the meanwhile, a team will be here within the week to move you to the best hospitals in Tokyo. Any separate affairs… wills, to consider – if you need assistance, I will send the very best.”

She half reached out, her hand sliding through the air towards him. “…And family?”

He blinked. “Family?”

Her voice broke, even while her eyes burned into his. “Will you – could you… you _will_ be his _family_?”

 

 

 

“Arrange our flights for tomorrow afternoon instead. Around noon. Rearrange my schedule accordingly,” Viktor ordered. 

A soft murmur as his assistant confirmed everything, her voice sounding tinny through the old portable phone he held.

“And I must have left my phone in the car today. Make sure to send back the same driver tomorrow, and that he has it on hand.”

Another murmur, but this time with a hint of surprise. Viktor ran his fingers through his hair. Of course she was surprised – she’d worked for him for years, and it was very unlike him to commit a clumsiness of this sort, any kind of absentmindedness.

At the thought of all the work he was currently unable to access, he felt his fingers itching with frustration. “Go through my work emails and call me on this number if there is anything urgent. Make sure Andreesson has the ironed-out details on that Harlsberg-Lanson contract and send a copy of the final numbers along with the driver. I expect for everything to be ready for signing as soon as I step back into the office.”

A final confirmation. Viktor hung up.

In the sudden silence his sigh hissed through the room, and it seemed to reverberate around the tiny space. It was one of the smaller guest bedrooms, barely six mats wide. Like the rest of the abode, this room was minimally furnished. It had a small nightstand, a butterfly candlestick, and a small but warm futon neatly laid to one side.

The best thing about the room was the sliding doors which led directly to the onsen outside. Hiroko had graciously allowed him the room where a private sized bath lay bubbling outside, fed by geothermic tunnels that wound their way beneath the ground.

Perhaps it was time to indulge in one; there was really nothing else to do. Dinner had been an hour ago, a quiet affair with just the two of them (“Yuuri is having a farewell dinner at Yuuko’s. They’ve heard he’s going on a trip to visit some distant relatives.”) dining on Hiroko’s Japanese cuisine. The meal, though hardly one of the most comfortable he’d ever sat at, had been surprisingly good. He’d thought he’d try one or two bites out of politeness but had found himself scarfing it down like a starving farmhand.

 _Katsu-don_ , she’d said fondly, as Viktor had finally collected himself and remembered to be embarrassed at how he’d eaten. _Yuuri’s favorite._

Now there were the long, quiet hours of the evening, bleeding into one another as the sky darkened. First, the multihued luminescence of twilight – then a dark, inky blue slowly settling over them.

Normally he barely noticed trivial things such as the sun setting or rising. His life revolved around his office, his meetings, his appointments. In this sudden situation where he found himself absolutely cut off with nothing to do, he thought that he would go crazy from frustration.

Wandering outside in the small grounds was a definite no (he had no desire to bump into any bathhouse guests that might have made their way up, and especially not the elusive Yuuri – if anything, he’d be more than happy to not lay eyes on him until the minute they were leaving this place), nor was he willing to risk walking back down the hill and wandering lost around the small village. He had nothing more to say to Hiroko, nor any desire to dredge up old, half-buried memories. Nor did he want to look into her wasted face, recalling how vibrant she’d once been.

Tugging off his shirt and trousers, the starch long gone out of them, he slipped a towel around his waist and stepped outside.

A pleasant breeze blew past as he made his way down to the sunken pit of the baths. The rubber slippers of his feet thwacked loudly on the cobbled steps, echoing into the rustling trees silhouetted against the evening sky.

With the handheld shower affixed next to it, he quickly washed and scrubbed himself, and sank into the steaming water.

“Ahh,” he groaned.

Bliss. Pure, utter bliss. Against all his inhibitions, he relaxed completely, sinking low into the water until only his head was above it. He leaned against the side, the smooth-hewn rocks sliding pleasantly across his back. He flexed his muscles, rubbed his shoulders, and leaned his head back. He draped a smaller, steamed towel across his closed eyes and let out another deep breath.

He could almost forget why he was here – could pretend this was just a rare night off, a night of relaxation and quiet, nothing to _think_ , nothing to _do_ …

The only dim light that glowed on the grounds of the house was the one he’d left on behind the papered walls of his room. The rest of the house was silent. From the gentle sounds of the water (the larger baths were just around the corner from him), he could ascertain that there were no others enjoying them tonight.

The stars furled out above him, blinking, pulsating above the deep inky black, and even the faint shimmer of the Milk Way, absolutely entrancing him…

He stayed out for what seemed like hours, having no concept of time or space.

 

 

 

When he began feeling the bite of the night air, he got up, ready to call it a night. He felt more relaxed than he had in ages – he was even humming. 

His mind pleasantly churned through the details of next morning. He’d wake up early, have a final meal with Hiroko and meet Yuuri, let them finish up with whatever they needed while he’d be on the phone with his assistant. From her lack of calls, it would seem that everything had been well taken care of tonight. Then a quick ride to the airport, set Yuuri up, and slip back into his old life. Every piece would slide into place; his life would go back to exactly what it had been before.

That was when a light in the adjacent room suddenly lit up.

Viktor had hardly time to turn around when the door slid open with a crash, and a young man’s silhouette suddenly filled the entrance.

“Ha – oh… _oh_!”

The man called Katsuki Yuuri let out a strangled half-cough as he caught sight of the silver-haired man standing in the water, steam rising from his warmed skin.

Their eyes met.


	2. Yuuri

**THE SUN WAS HIGH ABOVE HIM**.

Yuuri floated on the water, his eyes dreamily fixed on the mild blue expanse above – seeing nothing, seeing everything.

He loved moments like these. Where it was calm, cool and quiet. When he was one with the sky and the earth and the water. He knew he was welcomed into the mysterious embrace of the water - the ocean, to him, was a dark, awe-inducing, terrifying – mother.

He had been on this island for much of his life and he loved it fiercely. Loved every blade of wild green grass, every knoll, every rocky bump of its surface. If he closed his eyes, he could hear the splashing of the fish, the creaking of his wooden boat in the dawn with the morning sun yet to rise. Could smell the evenings in his garden when ashy incense mingled with the sweet bitterness of roasted tea.

This was his home. But for better or worse, he was leaving.

“Yuuri!” came a distant shout from the shore. He languidly turned his head, squinted to see the tiny figure in the distance.

It was Yuuko, his oldest friend. He could vaguely make out her hand cupped around her mouth, her other hand waving frenetically in the air 

“Come out!”

He sighed – a long, drawn out breath that murmured over the water. Turned, and with sure, practiced strokes began swimming towards land.

When his toes hit the spongy ground below he stood upright. Rivulets of gleaming salt water ran down his body as he made his way out, brushing wet strands out of his eyes. Taking his glasses out of their protective case, he slid it on over the bridge of his nose.

Yuuko was smiling at him, her hands curled around her waist in a mock-angry stance.

“Yuuri! Of course you were _here_ , when I’ve been looking for you all over the island!"

“Sorry, Yuu-chan," he said as he approached her, splattering water all over the sand. He opened the net that was hanging from his side, the bottom of which was an assortment of sea urchins and shells. He picked one out and handed it over to her. The surface of it gleamed pink and lustrous and she let out a little breath as it nestled heavily in her palm. She opened it to see the fleshy surface dotted with tiny, misshapen pearls.

“This is beautiful,” she said reverently.

Yuuko, blinking through her lashes, looked up at him. Silhouetted against the sun, with an oddly pensive expression on his face, her old friend felt all of a sudden remote and unreachable. Yuuri, beautiful Yuuri, who had laughed and cried with her and held her so gently through all of her childhood heartbreaks. Suddenly – inexplicably – leaving her behind.

“Do you really have to go?” she asked.

Smiling again, that wry smile that always gave Yuuko a little ache in her heart, he replied. “Yeah. Kaa-san is sick, and she needs to go to the hospital. And she told me that instead of staying with her and getting underfoot, I should go and live with... with family for a bit. You know… see the world.”

_With him._

At the thought, a low and curling heat pooled in the pit of his stomach.

“Is your mom going to be okay?” Yuuko thought of Katsuki-san, who’d seemed as if she’d aged ten years in the past six months.

He nodded. “She said she will be. But only doctors in big hospitals will be able to cure her. She’ll be there for a few months then she'll be fine. And then we’ll both come back home.”

Yuuko reached out and gripped his hand. “Well… I’ll be waiting for you both to come back safe and sound. All of us will be.”

He gripped hers back just as tightly. The two friends made their way up from the beach, Yuuri still trekking wet sand and bits of scattered pebbles he’d dredged up from shallow shores.

“Hello!” he called out as they approached a group by the pier. A group of the town elders were there, old fisherwomen who had lived all their lives on Hasetsu and firmly intended for their bones to be buried in the island soil.

The nearest of them turned and gave a toothless grin as she saw the pair. “Ah, Yuuri-kun! And Yuuko-chan. Always together, you two. When are we going to get you married off?”

As always, they waved it off. The two of them had heard these remarks for over a decade. “Yuu-chan is leaving me,” teased Yuuri. “For Nishigori Takeshi.”

The women frowned. “Nishigori? The ones that moved, who own that sports-boats-whatever shop?”

Yuuko laughed. “Yes, auntie. They sell all the water-ski equipment that tourists use – they’re doing pretty well, especially in the summer. And in the winter, they sell skates, toboggans, snowshoes.”

Another of the women grumbled. “Pah, tourists! Always clogging up the islands around this time… it’s a mercy they don’t come over to our side.”

“Yes, but think of what we could do with all the money these summer people spend. We could all get nice new speedboats, instead of this rickety wooden boating with holes all down the bow. And I can finally get those flower-marble mahjong tiles I’ve been wanting for two decades,” spoke up an economical-minded auntie.

Yuuri knew that, were he to let them, the women could grumble to themselves round and round in circles until they all came to agree that it was all the fault of their whaling forefathers. They had failed to properly set up Hasetsu into a fishing powerhouse base back in the days and had let their descendants live on in the island's zenith.

“Here, auntie,” Yuuri handed over his net to the lady in the center. “I picked up the last of the sea urchins down by the basin." The basin was the crack between the great rocks down below the water that the younger members regularly dived down to, looking for urchins, shells, and other precious ocean things.

“Ah, good, good. We were wondering if we would be getting these from you today. What with you going on your trip…”

She suddenly perked up. “That reminds me, Yuuri! There was a foreigner here not one hour ago, looking for you!”

Yuuri felt a chill run through him.

“…A foreigner? Who?”

The women had begun animatedly talking among themselves again. “Yes, yes, that strange foreigner…” “…terribly vulgar though, wasn’t he? What with those weird motions he was making…” “…my goodness but he was a handsome thing wasn’t he?”

Yuuri pressed down the anxiety rising in his voice. “Did – did he say what his name was? What did he look like?”

“Very tall, very strapping.” said one. “Oh yes,” said another. “Shiny hair and eyes as blue as early frost."

'Shiny hair'. 'Blue eyes'. It was _him_ , no doubt.

"...although he was hopelessly lost and seemed rather foolish.”

“Lost?” said Yuuri in alarm. “What do you mean, lost?”

The women laughed. “He was a silly fish, just flapping about!” chuckled the lady whom he’d given his urchins. “But don’t worry, Yuuri-kun. We sent him off in the right direction, to your mother's onsen. Oh, and I gave him the bag I was saving for you.”

“Ah,” said Yuuri, relieved. “Thank you, thank you so much…”

Yuuko grabbed his arm. “Yuuri, we need to get going! My mom is making a big dinner for you, all your favorites!”

The two of them bobbed their head in farewell, and the chorus started again (“ah, Yuuri! You’re going to be gone for a while, aren’t you?” “Yes, those terribly expensive Tokyo doctors for your mama – ” “Here, have some of this dried mackerel, you can have it for a snack while you’re getting on one of those planes.”). In a few minutes, amidst a tangle of fishy clothes and arms flung about his person, he managed to extricate himself and wave goodbye to the women.

“I’ll be back soon!” he called out as the pair made their way into the town roads. “Take good care of yourselves, aunties!”

“So…” Yuuko said as they sped their way towards a cluster of houses coming up, round the bend and away from the elevation where Yuutopia was located. “ _Viktor Nikiforov_ , right?”

Yuuri blushed at the mention of that name, and Yuuko didn’t miss it.

“It’s crazy,” she said, shaking her head. “Here’s this skater you used to idolize when we were young – and didn’t he, like, drop out completely from skating just when he was the reigning junior champ? The man's been gone from the sports scene for almost two decades - and now you tell me he’s here! It’s like a movie, Yuuri.”

She slanted a side look at the man in pace beside her, at his delicate profile, the brown eyes, the rosy soft cheeks. “I’m gonna be honest, Yuuri. I don’t see it. He’s as Russian as can be, and you – you look pretty Japanese to me. There’s a liiiiitle bit of a mix look to you but…” she trailed off dubiously.

“I don’t know,” he said rather helplessly. “My mom only told me a few months ago – and I couldn’t believe it first. How could I! But then she pulled out a photo…” he looked to the side, pink in the face.

“What? A photo of _what_? You didn’t tell me this!”

“It was just… me, when I was a baby. And him. We were – we took a picture together.”

She grabbed him again. “When you were a baby? Then maybe while he was still skating!”

“Y-yes. Maybe.”

"Show me, show me, show me!"

"I..." for some reason, he hesitated. "I don't have it on me."

That was a lie. Yuuri carried it with him always, had carried it since the day his mother unearthed it. It occupied a sacred, hidden space of his battered old wallet, and though he had forgotten about it at times, went through long stretches of time without looking at it, he took comfort from the fact that it was with him. Yuuri thought about the way, in the photo, the older boy had wrapped himself around him and his own baby pudgy figure had been so safely cradled in his arms. Viktor had been smiling down at him, his hair tumbling down his shoulders and over Yuuri’s head like a silver waterfall.

He thought about how, even in the warped, decades old image with its faded colors- Viktor Nikiforov had seemed to glow.

Once, many years ago, figure skating had been his passion and Viktor Nikiforov had been his dream. In their youth Yuuri and Yuuko had wandered over to the Nishigori’s, who had been located in Hasetsu before their move. They’d run a sporting goods shop even then – the whole Nishigori family were crazy about sports. Probably why Yuuko and Takeshi had ended up together as a couple; their mutual love of all things outdoors.                                                   

Inside the store, a glossy magazine had caught his eye. A tall, lone figure. Whirling on the ice.

Yuuri had hesitantly lifted it off from the stand, staring at the confident posture, the killer smile of the man on the cover.

**_JEAN-JACQUES LEROY!_** The page had screamed. **_THE CANADIAN WUNDERKIND BARES ALL, ON AND OFF THE ICE!_**

Huh. Skating. Yuuko dragged him out to the ice every winter and he did like it enough, gliding about in a pair of Takeshi’s too-small skates. He could still remember the thrill he’d gotten when he’d first skated straight across the river, shooting past Yuuko as she scrambled to keep up.

‘You’re really good, Yuuri!’ she’d exclaimed. He’d shrugged.

Out of curiosity he'd flipped through the hefty volume, landing at the centerfold article. Another photo of the athlete – his eyes flashing, his teeth blinding white as he held up a big, gleaming gold medal.

_JEAN-JACQUES LEROY, A BLAST OF FIRE AND ICE._

_Story: Martha Hamilton. Photography: Patrick DeMarchelier. LeRoy wears, on the forepage: Vera Wang-designed custom ice suit; Cutler and Gross sunglasses; own skates._

 

_AT THE AGE OF 23, skating prodigy Jean-Jacques LeRoy has already scooped up a handful of Grand Prix medals and a host of regional honors. Having brought home the gold in his first Olympics, LeRoy is considered a newly crowned god in his hometown and to die-hard skating fanatics, all of whom follow his every move with the zeal of a teen idol devotee. He is as famous for his robust technique as his indefatigable confidence (‘the better word is 'ridiculous' confidence’, say rivals). But is there another man behind the ice-bound antics – or is it all, simply, 100% JJ-Style?_

_I meet LeRoy in his beautifully appointed home in Toronto at the start of the off-season. It is full of color and clashing fabrics, Gucci throw pillows (emblazoned with tiny skates, naturally) casually tossed on top of one-of-a-kind Versace hardware. But even in the midst of this unbelievable opulence, the most eye-popping thing of all is the display case proudly in the center of the room, under its own spotlight: every single award he has ever received in his career._

_What’s even more astonishing is the slew of empty spaces next to all that burnished medal._

_"Those are for all the trophies I’ve yet to receive!”_

_LeRoy strolls out into the living room with his hand outstretched. It is immediate to see that the man is every bit the persona he projects onto the ice. His swaggering outré is both terrifying and hypnotizing to behold._

_“Welcome to my kingdom!” he smiles. “On the podium or off, I consider myself a king in every way!”_

Feeling slightly nauseated, Yuuri had flipped the page, where his eyes had been immediately drawn to the enlarged words in the center.

_“ THE ONLY SKATER I EVER CONSIDERED AS A RIVAL WAS VIKTOR NIKIFOROV.”_

Rivals? Interesting.

_“So tell me, JJ. It’s been quite a season. There are some incredible skaters that you’ve been in competition for years – and some notable new talent. Was there anyone that you were particularly wary of this season?”_

“ _No. Every season, there is talent. Talent that existed, talent that will come. But no one has been able to threaten me yet in my career. Personally, the only skater I ever considered as a rival was Viktor Nikiforov.”_

_I can hardly hide my shock. “Viktor Nikiforov?” For a second, I have to peruse my memories, at this name I hadn’t heard of in a decade._

_“Yes. Nikiforov – when he was active.”_

_I have to do a quick Google check to make sure of my facts. “Viktor Nikiforov, Junior Grand Prix champion at age fifteen… a potential to write history… retired the next year?”_

_For the first time during this interview, LeRoy looks pensive. “Yes. Nikiforov was ahead of me a few years and – as much as I hate to admit – everyone in the world was talking about him, and with good reason. I had never seen anyone skate like him before. I was burning to face him on the ice - but before giving me a chance to properly compete, he retired. At sixteen!”_

_I scroll down my search engine, regarding more titles popping up under the elusive Mr. Nikiforov. “Hm. The current president of Nikiforov Holdings, Inc., inherited family business…”_

_LeRoy sighs. “The man threw away his talent for money. Ridiculous.”_

_Sensing juicy tidbits that run further below the surface, I want to pry – but LeRoy’s expression, usually cocksure, is looking rather stormy. As the man has a reputation for ending interviews he is less than pleased with, I hurriedly steer the conversation back to its initial course._

_“So – as for current rivals, you don’t believe there is anyone to equal you…”_

In a corner of the page had been a picture of another smiling figure, with the tiny caption _Viktor Nikiforov, 2XXX Junior Grand Prix winner._

It was only a headshot, a teenage boy with a fall of pale hair and paler Nordic skin. But something about it had captured the young Yuuri’s attention and kept him still. The confidence in the way this boy held his head aloft. The all-knowing, insolent smile he gave the camera. The unreadable expression in his dark, dark blue eyes.

“Yuu-chan,” he'd murmured as Yuuko wandered near. “Can we find something online? There’s something I want to see…”

“What?” She'd peered down at the magazine in his hands. “Oh, you want to see Jean-Jacques LeRoy’s routines? He’s a really good skater – a little too _much_ , but talented.”

“No, no,” He'd jabbed at the little picture in the corner. “I want to see him. Viktor Nikiforov.”

“Viktor Nikiforov… huh, haven’t heard of him…” shrugging, she'd pulled him over to the computer the Nishigori’s kept in the corner. Booting it on, she clicked open internet explorer and typed in his name in YouTube.

A list of videos had popped up. 

“Here, this – ” Yuuri pointed to a frozen image of a smiling Nikiforov, a bouquet of blue roses crooked in his arm. “ _Viktor Nikiforov Men’s Junior Grand Prix Champion 2XXX._ ”

The motions that filled the screen in front of them had rendered the two speechless.

Viktor Nikiforov was not just moving – he was _of_ the ice, he was the wind, he was simply love in motion. His gold skates flashed as his eyes flashed and grew languid, his body dipped and stretched like a line of poetry. Every move of his bleeding restraint, elegance personified, desire caught in a leash. The camera zoomed to his face, and so full of longing it was – suppressed joy and melancholia all at once was his gaze, the crystal blue of his eyes misting as they looked straight into the camera. Yuuri felt a tremble go through his body.

As Viktor glided/slashed his way through, Yuuri could not tear his eyes away.

“That last combination was beautiful – triple axel, single lutz, triple salchow – executed as assuredly as if he were jumping on solid ground.” the commentator remarked, the awe clearly heard in his voice. “A beautiful step sequence… the audience is hanging on to his every movement. And yes – he’s going for his final jump – the quadruple toe loop – but… wait, it looks like – a quadruple flip!” He shouted ecstatically as the audience burst into applause. “A flawless quadruple flip on top of an already dazzling program! …And with this, ladies and gentlemen, Viktor Nikiforov has capped off a triumphant performance… possibly the greatest in the history of the competition!”

Yuuri and Yuuko had watched as the video cut to Viktor stepping onto the podium, a crown of lovely blue roses perched on top his shining head. He waved, held up his gold medal amidst the roar of the audience – and the clip ended.

Yuuko let out a deep breath. “… _Wow_.”

Yuuri was already moving the mouse over the replay button.

And again, and again. By the time Takeshi ha kicked them out, Yuuri had watched this single clip 34 times, searing the movements in his brain. Memorizing each step, each sequence. Committing Viktor’s face, his many expressions, every clench of his jaw and flash of his eyes as his gaze burned into the lens.

When he left, he’d looked up at the summer sky and grimaced. ‘Figure skating, huh…’ he’d thought. ‘I can’t wait until winter.’

 

 

 

He had never accomplished it, of course. Had never become a professional skater – there were no opportunities, not even a rink at which he could practice regularly. He’d thought of asking his mother for some way to commute to the bigger, more prosperous towns on the connecting islands, maybe even on the mainland – but as their customers had dwindled and his mother’s back stooped with illness, he had never been able to ask what would have surely caused her to use tremendous effort and resources. Instead, he’d skated every moment he could, that precious one month in the winter when the river was frozen solid enough to step without breaking – with his head in the clouds. The rest of the year he'd practiced ballet vigorously with Minako-sensei, who owned a small, failing studio further in town.

He’d still dreamed, of course. Of skating, of Viktor. But as the years had passed and the dream of professional skating grew away from him, he’d slowly loosened the vision he’d kept in his mind. One finger grip at a time, until it had been just a cherished, if slightly painful memory of his past.

He shook his head as he climbed up the ascent to his little house, the rocky paths and grassy knots posing little trouble for him as he made his way through the familiar paths. Viktor Nikiforov was here, in Hasetsu, in his _home_. He would be living with him while his mother was treated. It was all too much to comprehend.

As twilight fell and the colors of the sky ebbed to a steady dark, Yuuri slid open the rattling main entrance. “I’m home!” he called out, his voice strangely loud and cracked.

Immediately, he spotted a pair of strange shoes lined up next to his mother’s small straw moccasins. Shiny, square-toed, expensive buttery looking leather – incongruously out of place compared to Yuuri’s worn, scruffy sneakers and flip flops.

His heart thumped erratically.

His mother hurriedly came out. “Yuuri! You’re here!” she grasped his arm and pulled him towards her, wrapping him in an embrace. “Welcome back, my darling. How was Yuuko-chan? Did you properly thank her parents for the evening?”

“Kaa-san,” he whispered. “Is Viktor – is he  _here_?”

She smiled and nodded. “Yes. But I think he's sleeping now. You’ll have to meet him in the morning.”

“How… who… how is he? He knows all about – about _me_?”

“Don’t be silly, of course he knows. He even played with you when you were young, remember?”

He wanted to reply that he did not  _not_ remember, and would never have, except for that photograph she’d unexpectedly shown him. And Viktor Nikiforov most certainly didn't, as well. But his mother brushed a fallen strand of hair out of his face, reassuringly. “Oh, my darling. Don’t be nervous. I know it’s your first time meeting him, seeing him, and now you’re supposed to go and spend all this time with him. But I know it will be good for you. For you both. And you will develop your own special bond.

She coughed, a rattling sound that wracked her body with shivers and made her shrink into herself. Yuuri snapped out of his rumbling, panicked thoughts and began ushering his mother into the warmth.

“Mom, come on – let’s get you into bed…”

Yuuri gently led her into her room and tucked her in. The candle blinked and sputtered in its stand, throwing long, dark shadows in the room. An air of heaviness lingered – the very weight of it pressing down wearily on their shoulders.

His mother’s face looked wan and waxy. “Yuuri…” she reached up and stroked his cheek again, her leathery fingers tracing down to his chin. Her eyes glimmered in the darkness, and Yuuri thought he could see a trace of something wet sliding down her face. “Will you stay with me, tonight?”

He tucked her arm back into the blanket and thought about the way she used to smooth down his hair, countless times when he had been younger – whenever he had been crying, whenever he had been caught up in whatever childish drama. That movement had always seemed so strong, so heavy and assuring. Promising to take always be there for him. He had always felt the depth of her love for him through that slight but resonating weight of her palms.

He did the same motion for her now. Carefully. Reverently. “Of course. Let me go and cover up the baths, and I’ll bring my futon in here."

He stepped out and quietly slid the door closed, mind troubled. For a moment, he even forgot that his old idol was in his house. All he could think about was the weakened state of his mother.

He would visit her in the hospital, of course, he thought to himself. He knew that he was going to Russia, as that was where the other family was based. But he’d visit as often as he could, and when she was better… maybe she could get treated in St. Petersburg. And hopefully, after a few months, his mother would be well and they would come home again.

And, he thought with a surge of embarrassment. If, in the past few months, if – if they got along, then perhaps _he_ could come stay with _them_ , maybe even for months like the way Yuuri was going to him now…

From the silence in the hall, he assumed that Viktor was already sleeping. It was a relief, really. He had been so anxious about his visit that meeting him now in the dead of the night wouldn’t do his nerves any good. Better to sleep soundly and see him in the morning, when everything was bright and cheery, wholesome and proper under the light of the sun.

He went out to the main baths and slowly covered up each, making sure that the locks were on tight and proper. They both wouldn’t be home for months, and even with Yuuko promising to visit and look after things, he didn’t want to come back to see all manners of rats or other less desirable things floating about, drowned in the waters.

The rustle of the wind through the trees, the way the stars pulsed and wheeled above him was electric. The faint, shimmering paths of the galaxy was breathtaking – the hundreds, thousands of times he had observed the skies from childhood to now, but he would never get over the sheer awe of its magnitude, the feeling that extraordinary things lurked in the eons-long gaze of the heavenly bodies. He thrust his face upwards, bidding his respects. A long, silent farewell.

The only bath left to cover was the small private one nestled outside of his bedroom. He went back into his room and thrust open the second set of doors, on the other side of it, the ones that opened straight to the outside.

Just as he heard a loud splash, and saw the straightening of a tall, pale, _naked_ body rising out of that very pool.

“Ha…”

All motion, all thought, all _breath_ , became nonexistent. He was completely blank – just static waves – as he gazed blankly at the figure standing in front of him, rivulets of steaming water running down his absurd Adonis body.

The man turned around and narrowed his intensely blue gaze at him, and Yuuri came to with a gasp.

“ – oh… oh! _Oh_!”

 

* * *

 

 

VIKTOR'S FIRST THOUGHT was that the young man in front of him was on the verge of a heart attack. His entire body was frozen stiff excluding the odd tremor that ran through it, and his brown eyes were ringed wide and dilated. The glasses he wore did nothing to disguise the absolute shock in his eyes. Even his hair, rough and mussed, seemed to stand electrocuted out of his head.

He was in shock, as well, though he hid it better than the other. He hadn’t expected to meet him until early in the morning, when both of them could act cordially, pretend nothing was amiss, and pretend not to be absolute and utter strangers under the guise of a sunny bright morning.

Of course the gods had laughed once more on this unfolding tragedy and decided that this would be the first time they would meet – he, knee-deep and buck-naked in a Japanese bath, and Katsuki, looking absolutely in fear of his life.

Abruptly, he leant down and grabbed the warming towel he’d placed by the rocks; he efficiently wrapped it around the dip of his waist and knotted it securely.

Yuuri Katsuki jerked to motion, face reddening, hastily looking down, to the side, to the top – at anywhere but him.

Viktor sighed and steeled himself. One foot, then two, out of the water, he slid on the tattered slippers. Casually made his way to where Yuuri stood rigid in the frame of the door.

The closer he got, the more catatonic Katsuki grew.

When there was about a foot of space between them, he stopped (slightly fearful the man would just keel over right then and there).

“… Yuuri Katsuki?”

After a moment or two of gaping like a fish, Katsuki finally seemed to blink himself into consciousness. Bobbing his head furiously, he began babbling.

“Ah, yes! And y-y-you must b-be Vikt – Nikiforov-san!”

“Yes. It’s a pleasure.”

“S… same h-here.”

There was another long moment of silence.

Viktor felt extremely irritable and antsy as the silence prolonged, not to mention chilled.

“…Well,” he said wryly, as it became apparent there were no other words forthcoming from the younger man. “I’m sure there is much for us to discuss, but perhaps we could continue this in the morning. When I’ve got clothes on.”

Katsuki’s face flamed red once more.

“See you then." Viktor continued. "Rest well – you’ve got a long journey ahead of you.” He paused, then reluctantly raised his hand up.

Katsuki jerked to attention, his eyes riveted on the pale, dripping hand Viktor held out to him. Slowly – trembling, almost – he moved his own arm upwards as well. He delicately slid it against the Viktor’s palm, and as Viktor tightened his grip, shyly grasped back.

Perhaps it was the sudden contact, perhaps the encompassing warmth of that shy, unsteady hand as Viktor’s own had chilled in the air of the night. Whatever it was – there was a jolt of something electric between them. Recognition, a _knowing_.

The blue of Viktor’s eyes narrowed.

Katsuki finally tilted his face to look at him. His pink lips parted and his face was full of wonder.

Viktor stared down into the depths of Yuuri Katuski’s dark, dark eyes, and did not look away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [webtoon](https://www.lezhin.com/en/comic/paramour_en) that inspired this fic. Please check it out, addictive story and _gorgeous_ art.
> 
> I listened to ['Nero' by Two Steps from Hell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LtnLVRvypw) obsessively while writing most of this. [Joe Hisaishi's 'Summer'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB_xyy2mOdQ), with Yuuri on his back in the water etc.
> 
> [My instagram](https://instagram.com/alxkim/).


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